Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages have thousands of characters. A standard keyboard input is impractical to use with these languages. There are many input devices on the market for these character sets. Many of the devices are external peripherals that combine a digitizer with a USB connection to allow for handwriting input into a computer. These devices have certain inherent disadvantages. One disadvantage is their extra cost, partially due to the additional materials involved in building an external device (i.e. the hard-shell exterior for the digitizer, the USB cabling, etc). The bulkiness of a separate device is another disadvantage. For example, if a user has a mobile computer, she would have to not only carry around the computer wherever she went, but she would also need to carry the USB digitizer input device if she wanted to have handwriting input capability.
Some mobile computer systems have recently been integrating a second display for additional visual output. These displays have commonly been used to obtain information when the computer system otherwise would be powered down. For example, a laptop computer that has wireless connectivity to a network could notify the user of a new email even with the laptop's shell closed. The secondary display may be placed on the outer shell and may notify the user of such things as wireless network signal strength, incoming emails, battery life, etc. This benefit would allow a user to always be connected and aware of information relating to the computer that she would otherwise not be aware of until she opened up the laptop shell and viewed the information on the primary display screen.